


there's a colour in your hands

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, Mild canon divergence, Platonic Relationships, Two warrior babies working it all out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tale of the Inquisition, its tumultuous rise, its victories, its legacy, told through the lens of the friendship of Cassandra Pentaghast and Cullen Rutherford; a bond built on blood-stained pasts, battle-weary hands and a hope for redemption unsaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the righteous, the lights in the shadow [before haven]

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Color In Your Hands feat. Fink_ by D.L.i.d
> 
> Chapter titles from Chant of Light.
> 
> Pretty much inspired by [this fantastic collection of drawings](http://everkings.tumblr.com/post/125523378086/favorite-brotp-cassandra-and-cullen) by [everkings](http://everkings.tumblr.com/). Thank you for letting me include the link here!
> 
> So, I haven't written anything proper in a few years. And that's about all the warning you're gonna get because this could be rough. This will be from Cassandra's POV. Canon divergence is mostly because I'm gonna forget shit so yeah, oops? 
> 
> Note: I left the Inquisitor without a name since my own Trevelyan didn't really fit with the character I wanted to write. And I like the aesthetic of Cassandra and everyone else referring to her as they do in game.

> there's a colour in your hands,  
>  could never erase, never rub out, no;  
>  there's a power in your hands,  
>  could never return, never get back, no;  
>  there's a moment in your hands,  
>  could never give up, never get slack no;  
>  there's atonement in your hands,  
>  could never get soft, never attack, no.  
> 

_A note, hastily written, ink smudged near the edges._

Ambassador - 

I can understand your hesitation in my decision to approach Knight-Commander Rutherford but I assure I have not made this decision lightly. He has proven himself a capable recruit in the wake of the disaster in Kirkwall. His past should have no indication of his worth now. The rumours are wholly unfounded though persistent.

We agreed that it was up to my discretion to make this decision. It has been made and I hope that you will support me in this. I am certain I have not made a mistake.

//

He is not the man she expects. Or the one she read about— _heard rumours of_. Of course, she told herself all sorts of things to convince herself that she was right, that the reports she had heard from the city were not merely exaggerated truths.

If she was wrong, she was not sure. The story-teller had given her nothing of worth and she had sent him off ahead with her soldiers, not trusting herself to bring the dwarf back in one piece by the end of the trip. She was determined to come away from this maddening city with at least something to show.

He meets her in The Hanged Man, an over-glorified hovel that is heady with ale and seems to radiate with the crackling fire. He walks in as if the place wants to reject him, his steps heavy and deliberate, his shoulders squared, his eyes set. Or maybe that's just Templars. Maybe it's just him and the burden of his choices.

Two worn mugs are set in front of them and they talk.

“It must be tiring,” Cassandra says. “ _You_ must be tired.”

He is running a finger along the binding of the tome she had set down some time before. He has scarcely touched his drink. Cassandra has had three. 

“I suppose,” he answers.

“So, you will consider?” She lowers her voice, trying not to sound too hopeful.

He sighs, pushing himself back, his knuckles curling over the edge of the bar. “If I leave—”

“We have the resources to make you, uh—comfortable, Knight-Commander.”

He shakes his head. The corner of his mouth turns up—a smile. “No. If I leave, I'm done. No more of it.”

There's a half-protestation that dies on her lips before she can finish the thought. She knows she can't hide her surprise. “Are you certain?”

He looks at her, really does, for the first time since he came to her in this festering place and his stare is unreadable. “Yes. But I need your promise that you will watch over me. That you will intervene when I am no longer able to.”

She's desperate. She's not sure she can do this. But—she believes he can. She has no choice, not now. “I promise.”

//

She won't tell him. To share it would be admitting something to herself that her pride will not allow. Her poor mother; she knew well before Cassandra had come into her own that should be wild spitfire. Cassandra thinks she has used it to her advantage. As advantageous as bravado sheltering uncertainty can be.

She thinks if she warns him he will overcompensate. Or not try at all. Fall back and let her lead. She's not sure which is more damning.

She wants him to prove himself without forewarning, prove that the city hadn't stripped him of everything, prove that he didn't come back as hollow as she felt, even from her short stay there.

So, when they come across a group of apostates making camp just outside of Highever, she watches him from the corner of her eye. Marking him. Studying the intentions of his steps, the stilling of his hands over the grip of his sword, his eyes shining as if wanting but not letting himself surrender to it. Not yet.

If there was more time, if she could have stopped the hurtling of time, she would have been more likely to be unsettled by his intensity. In that measured moment, it's just what she wanted of him. To prove her choices to no one particular. _Look at him, a fine warrior, unafraid of death._

It was a confining trip, their bodies still adjusting and aching and stretching, from sitting in cramped stowage of a merchant ship carrying them across the Waking Sea but it doesn't slow him. He moves with practiced grace, the sharp ease of endless hours of training, how his sword falls so fast and so controlled, it almost looks like an accident when he reels back, arms flung to his sides to steady himself.

Cassandra hasn't had much use for her abilities in recent years but she allows herself temporary panic and draws from the unchanging lightness of faith in her, throws her hand towards the apostate charging her, _almost_ relishes in the stuttered fall and jerk and twist of his limbs as the lyrium burned in his veins. But she won't allow herself that.

He brings down two apostates—one who looks too young, blinded by choice words and naivety, _terror_ —and pins one by the arms with his knees, straddled across their back, blood-spattered leather glove pressed into their shoulders.

Cassandra stands over him, her erratic breaths giving way to a calming collectiveness, sharp intakes and long exhales. She can't hear his breathing and wonders if he is even, at all.

“Commander,” she says.

His shoulders heave, just once, a shudder-stop motion that is astonishingly disheartening. 

Her hand grips his elbow; yanks him up, unkind. He lets go easily, his body suddenly loose, a doll to be manipulated. 

“Cullen.”

“I'm sorry. I—,” he drags a hand across his face, his eyes fluttering closed, avoiding her, “forgot myself.”

She thinks it's a little more than that.

// 

They are maybe halfway to the Conclave and he tries his best to hide it from her. But she notices. He asked her to and she finds it ridiculous that he refuses to admit it to her.

He protests, of course. Ever the trained gentlemen, too arrogant to show anything less and too afraid to reveal the absurdity of it.

He's unpacking his tent and bed roll and she's standing resolutely before him, heels digging in the dirt. The sky is threatening rain, a distant rumble of thunder coming down from the Frostbacks, and she has no patience for humouring him this.

“I will be just fine, Seeker,” he says in a noticeably clipped tone.

She makes a distinct noise of disgust.

He throws his half-wrapped bedroll to the ground but doesn't stand. “I wish you would give me some credit.”

“I have given you lots. I am still giving you the credit you deserve. But your stubbornness is not included,” she says. “You are not doing well. You need a proper rest.”

When he looks up at her, she is reminded of how far he had fallen in the past week. His face had paled, sunken circles under his eyes, blackened like vicious bruises. He covered himself in cloaks to hide the shivering, little good it did in the end. Busied his hands with repacking satchels, stopping on their path to readjust when the shaking in his hands became bothersome. 

She points behind her. “The docks are just up ahead. There is a dry house with beds and a hearth and maybe, if we are lucky, a warm meal.”

He glances briefly in the same direction before shaking his head and going back to his tent, unfurling it one careful flick of his wrist. “I am perfectly fine out here.”

“I am not!” Cassandra has to remind herself not to shout, this bone-deep exhaustion getting the better of her.

He regards her with a practiced stare and she knows this one all too well—the look of flat bewilderment, one reserved for new recruits who have dared to talk back to their superior, disobey a direct order. But—she's not sure who is who between them.

“The farther away I stay from those docks, the happier I will be,” he states plainly.

It takes her a moment before the clarity settles coldly amongst her fervour. She glances behind her, towards Lake Calenhad and, in the soft pink-red sunset, the spire of the Circle Tower, half-dark and half-bathed in a blazing light. 

“I apologize,” she mutters. She knows that cruel ache and pull back, the chase of distance you can never seem to reach, no matter how far you run.

He nods, curt and without much effort. 

When the rain does come later that night, loud and unforgiving, pelting against her tent, she doesn't have it in her to be unhappy.

//

During the night, she can hear the nightmare screams. She pulls her knees to her chest, trying to let it drown out in the muffled sounds of the wilderness around her. Her helplessness overwhelms her and though she knows the stages of the withdrawal, when to ultimately intervene, there is a small clench in the pit of her stomach, halting her in doing wrong. In inserting herself where she is not welcome. So, she stays put, her hands clasped together around her ankles, chin on her knees, talking quietly to the Maker and not asking for anything in particular.

During the day, he fills the warm air with rambling stories, too innocent to be full truth, his whole body weighted, his bones cracking when he moves, the sigh of his exhaustion audible in the pauses of his words. She learns to listen with a smile on her face and thinks that he can overcome.

Only two days from the Conclave, resting at the base of the mountains, the screams are replaced with something else. She turns over, strains to hear it through the thick canvas that shrouds them both. It's something more brutal, unreserved—conscious. 

_He's crying_ , she realizes.

She pushes back the flaps of her tent, pausing for a moment when silence comes. And then she hears it again, her head snapping towards his own tent. She is resolute in this and walks gently, almost still certain she is unwelcome and she should continue ignoring it until morning and wait for the stories and the comfort in tender dishonesty, and lifts the flap of his tent.

“Cullen,” she whispers. 

There's a small hiccup and there's a knot in her chest.

She settles down beside him, pulling her legs underneath her. His back is turned to her, his body straight, the thin blanket pulled over his shoulders. She is scared to look at him and realize she _did_ make a mistake.

“I did promise,” she says in the dark.

He answers, “I know.”

“Can I—take care of you?” She asks, uncertain, just like all the moments leading up to this; if she is overstepping her bounds, if he even wants it, if she is even capable.

It's almost like a laugh, what she hears. “Please.”

(They pack up, movements stilted, calculated, unnaturally eased into, and they walk into the nearest village, more a cluster of thatched roof houses than anything. Her hand is wrapped around his elbow, leading him slowly on their path, his gait stumbling and feet catching on rocks. She knocks on the first door with a light and demands in her best authoritative voice for warm water and a bed.

The woman, her eyes heavy-lidded and wandering, flicks her gaze across Cullen.

_I only have one._

That will be fine.

She lays him down, feeds him warm water and honey, his eyes closed, giving in. He sinks into the bed, a deep breath welling in him. She hovers over him, suddenly self-conscious in her attempts to be a caretaker. _It's not who you are—you are a taker, a destroyer, justice and truth personified. Right Hand, reaching out for purity, is this pure?_

He reaches his hand out, blindly, and she instinctively reaches back. A small smile, just the corner of his lip lifting. She crawls in beside him, in this too small bed, surrounded by the sound of footsteps beyond the thin wall, the crackle of fire, his hitched breathes and the tremble in his hands. He drapes an arm over her shoulder, resting his chin on the top of her head.

It's been so long since she had felt the tangible comfort of another.

_Thank you._

She nods and closes her eyes.)


	2. one life, one death, there is [haven i]

Unwrapping leather cords, untying braided string, lifting and dropping the weight of her armour and craning her neck to the sound behind her. 

“Good to see your title of Spymaster is not in vain,” Cassandra says.

There is nothing but the sound of chainmail shifting across her own body, soft sharp echoes across the stone walls. The other woman makes no sound, her presence merely a thought, her movements a ghost, only enough to disquiet the space around her.

“I wonder, Seeker, how long he can outrun his past?”

“He has faced his past head on.”

Something halfway between a derisive laugh and a cutting sound of disapproval fills the air between them. “We will see,” Leliana mutters.

//

_If I had been there. If had been closer. If I had known. If I had been better. If I had been less selfish._

The initial shock wave had sent her falling. Charred air, lightning-crack along the breeze that strips the world bare, that acid sweetness of burnt soil, smoke and dust, coughing into the back of her hand, _trying trying trying_ to get in air.

All that sounds in the distance is the thunder and echo of rocks falling back to the mountains before a cry rings out, cutting through the silence like a blade. And she can't move.

Someone trips over her feet. She only moves back enough to sit up, looking up above the light-washed mountains. From where she sits, she can see the hollow vortex whirl around itself, a blinding sickening green. Petrified, enraged, she wants to close her mind to it, will herself to believe this can't be happening, that they aren't all dead—

_You are not a child. You are not this quivering mess. You have a job to do—do it._

She stands. Straightens her legs to stop the shaking. Her mind is spinning, she feels laden and airless, estranged to her purpose, her hands too weak to grip her sword. She steels herself, squeezing her eyes shut, shaking her head.

There is something on the horizon, hurtling towards them, and she _must_ be unafraid.

//

She is too young. Her eyes wide and bright and _ignorant_ , blind to her own blatant girlhood. Her fingers dance across the table in front of her, searching for purpose, as they talk of divine intervention, temporary reprieve of the _breach of the Fade_ , what do they do now when everything is gone. 

Trying to think beyond the barrage of doubt as Cassandra declares the Inquisition reborn, declares the soft-skinned and pink-cheeked girl the face of their cause.

The Herald looks at Cassandra and gives a timid smile.

Cassandra tries to catch Cullen's eye, exchange looks of stinging contemplation, but he stares resolutely in front of him. At the Herald. The _mage_. His face does not betray him, not to the those who are not meant to notice, but Cassandra sees it—the briefest glimpse that is wound tight in his set stare, pitiless, callous, terrified. Barely a flicker before he steps forward and displays the practiced decorum of a man trained to lead. A man trained to keep his place.

_Andraste, preserve us_. Cassandra lets the sigh die in her throat, pushing her fists into the table. 

Cassandra says to —no, not girl, but she looks it, her expressions soft and open, her skin unmarked by scars, eyes honest in wonder, her hands free of burdens. Cassandra says to her, _Trevelyan_ , as her arms cramp and burn from hours of slashing, stabbing, striking the mannequin, _they may think me a madwoman_. She believes it. But Trevelyan, Maker bless her, she doesn't. Cassandra grins, wondering what good it would do them all to live in a world based in such sincerity.

Trevelyan pauses at the edge of the tents before approaching Cullen. _Ah, she noticed then, too._

Cassandra tries to keep an eye on them and an eye on the sky. She is not sure which unnerves her more.

//

“If she is the Herald...” Cullen stares into his mug, hands free of the gloves stacked neat at his side, an odd sight, and jittery, more normal now than Cassandra wanted to admit.

“You may have admit the Maker looks kindly upon mages?” 

The tent is stifling, making her head thick and thoughts weak, their small fire warming them. Cassandra is sitting on her bed roll with her legs folded, Cullen across from her, his feet flat and knees pulled up in front of him, elbows resting atop.

“I have no issue with her abilities,” Cullen says sharply.

Cassandra drinks the whiskey she had taken from the story-teller ( _Prisoner's are not allowed such provisions_ , she sneered when she snatched the bottle from his bench but his nonchalant shrug was less of a reaction than she wanted). It burned her throat and soured on her tongue, her lips twisting into a dissatisfied snarl, _can't even get the good stuff_ , but it seemed to be doing the job. 

Not that she had anticipated anything more than steely glances at this point, but Cullen had seemed to overcome whatever had plagued him when the Herald first stumbled from the Fade. 

(Josephine had approached Cassandra afterwards, all rigid hands on parchment and fast-paced worry, her lips tight and eyes fierce, _this is a disaster—the Chantry will never accept—and what of your Commander—how do we know this won't make it worse_. Leliana was kind enough to only answer Cassandra with a raised eyebrow and a quiet retreat. Cassandra said nothing to Cullen as he stood in the back room of the Chantry, staring at the tome he had only seen a few weeks before, uncertainty trickling back into her mind, and left him to his own.)

Whatever they had between them, Cassandra hadn't quite come to terms with. They both wanted the same ends but their means parted swiftly. Cassandra wanted justice, to fix the wrong, to know what this all was and why, to mend the ache in her heart, if it was only in patches. Cullen wanted order and stability and the way things were. Or thought that it would be beneficial. Maybe they were the same thing, really, when it all came down to it. Cassandra wasn't sure.

They were friends. Of sorts. They had an agreement— _you lead, I watch_.

It was the closest thing she had had to companionship since the Divine. The thought of _her_ devours Cassandra's chest with a vast emptiness. She tries not to think.

Cullen drains the rest of his mug, his nose turning up at the pungent liquor, and Cassandra stifles a laugh behind her hand. He pushes himself from the ground, setting the cup beside him, staring thoughtfully at it.

“If she is the Herald,” he begins again, “I hope Andraste doesn't have a sense of humour.”

// 

Between training and councils and trekking across the Hinterlands and grappling with an inevitable destruction that screamed at them from the sky and washed the world viridescent, they found time to just _be_.

When the recruits had retired for their evening meal, the Commander would shed his cloak and pick up a sword. The Seeker would grin in the fading sun, holding her sword out to him, a invitation too tempting to ignore.

The clash of metal, a resounding hollow ring that bounced back to them from the fortification walls, is a welcome sound that divides the oncoming night into then and now. She is breathless at the end, her shield arm numb, her body electrified and grounded. Cullen may have been more soft in field combat than her but he had matched her step for step, even out-maneuvering her, catching her on her left side when her was shield down, grazing the side of it.

They'd collapse together as the moon made it's entrance, their breaths coming out in white puffs of frosted air, surrounded by fresh crackling fires and murmured voices. 

He'd stand first, pull her up, always courteous, and they'd walk shoulder-to-shoulder to the tavern. They would sit at a table alone, their weary dispositions giving the impression that they need not be bothered, nursing their ale and their old bones. If they never said a word, it wasn't out of the ordinary. She would come to revel in these moments with him, quiet talk between them that pried too far into the mundane and stepped carefully around what should be discussed, learning more of him and knowing what he was made of through stories that never said the words out right.

In these odd hours of dusk and dark, stooped over warm ale, they found something in common that bound them to each other and it began to ease carefully into their daily interactions. It was not love in the sense of romance, nor even the sense of a good friend—more of a kindred spirit, more in the way that they understood in ways others never could, more in the way that they aligned.

When they could find an evening to spare, though they were few and far between, they'd brandish their swords to each other in silence and relive their own tales of courage and glory, never needing to explain to the other the joy and misery in it.

//

Despite what little notoriety they have—and how scathing it is—they have no end of missions to run. Cassandra is shocked, and after some time reluctantly honoured, to be asked by the Herald to accompany her on her journeys to the Hinterlands. It's exhilarating to be out, doing substantial good that hums with the ache of long inert muscles, no matter how monotonous it is in the aggravating grasslands of Ferelden but she feels she has little right to complain. She is only a little irritated when they spend the better part of an afternoon coaxing a druffalo through a river.

Though, the company could be better as Trevelyan _insists_ on bringing the obnoxious story-teller along.

She will take it to her grave that she listens with a keen ear as he tells tales of courage and woe around the fire, her back turned to the raptured audience, oiling her shield for the seventh time.

She comes to realize her reservations regarding the Herald were unfounded in most areas, as is true of most her assumptions on people—something Cassandra knows she should work on and _yet_.

Some habits are hard to rid of. 

She is not the most adept mage, maybe a bit too young to have learned all she could in the Circle, and the apostate elf has set about helping her at camp to master their craft. Cassandra watches them warily and they know this, her sight never far from their work, but it doesn't stop the Herald from breaking down into giggles when she lights another requisition table on fire.

But she is undoubtedly kind and generous. She may have obvious reservations about her own abilities but it does not stop a good heart from blossoming. Cassandra almost finds it hard to believe, exchanging tentative glances with Solas as to the _intention_ of this, but Trevelyan is honest to a fault. She may be young but her heart is pure and Cassandra welcomes that; it seems the chances of finding it become less as she ages.

As much as she looks forward to the weeks away when the Herald approaches her, the fresh air filling her up, the simple deed of lending a stranger a hand or the anxious thrill of the hollow crackle of rifts as they spout out more demons to be slain—she feels apprehension being so far from Haven.

Cullen had not been getting better. To stave off the bad days, the mornings when she could _see_ it consuming, draining, him across the room, he kept busy. Constantly training the ones who showed even an inkling of eagerness, taking night-watch shifts for the recruits too tired to stand, taking in reports, filling out letters and requests by a waning candle light, standing out in the bitter chill of winter, looking up at the breach that seemed to pulse in their wake, waiting for the need to pass. If it ever did.

Cassandra wouldn't pretend to know what that kind of torture can do to a man but she had seen it enough and she wasn't too proud to admit it left her with a deepening concern.

He had been so withdrawn the last time she had left. He usually saw her off, helping her strap up her shield on her back, adjusting the leather so it sat comfortably across her shoulders. He would usually rest his warm hands on her arms, look at her and that small, half-smile would flicker on his face. It made her wonder what true joy would look like on him.

When she would come back, skin sore from relentless wind, her heart content and muscles happily aching, he would find her first, and half-smile, holding her there until she looked at him, as if to say, _I'm okay I'm here I'm fine_.

This time, on their way to the Storm Coast to investigate the offer of aid in the form of a rather charming mercenary at Haven's doors, he had walked past as she stood by the horse stalls, readying her shield, her anticipating his warm hands any moment, him with his head down and nothing in his hands, walking by as if he had somewhere to be.

She tried not to take it personally. 

She did, completely.

//

The blasted rain never ceased on the coast and Cassandra was growing tired of it. 

It was only slightly exacerbated by the bitterness over the Herald's decision to recruit the Chargers, especially after the Herald exuberantly divulged his ties to Ben-Hassrath, which Cassandra quickly crippled with a withering stare. Cassandra had promised herself at the beginning to trust in the Herald's decision, whatever it may be—it didn't mean she had to agree with them.

In the short space of time when the excitement of fresh faces dimmed and when they set up camp, she was left alone to her thoughts. Cassandra ran over the distance between herself and the commander, feeling the miles between them, even so far apart.

The Herald is twirling flames between her fingers beside her; coming to life and sputtering out in smoke just as fast. She glances over Cassandra's shoulder to the empty parchment of paper and quill that lay in her lap.

“Are you trying to write a report?” she asks. “I thought that would be something you'd be proficient at.”

Cassandra sighs. “Of sorts, I suppose.”

The fire sparks and she lets out a contained ball of flame, sending it into the damp fire pit, where it fizzles out in the wet earth. “Just a letter, then. Who are you writing to?”

“A friend.” Cassandra picks up the quill and taps it against her thigh.

Trevelyan is still pink-cheeked as she was when they first met but, right now, it's from brisk winds of the Waking Sea. She falters, yes, the role thrust upon her in haste weighing on her like ill-fitted armour, but she bears it and if she suffers, she does not let on. Cassandra knows it is not easy, frets at the thought of what is to come, how Trevelyan will handle the mounting responsibilities that are asked, demanded, expected of her. It is admirable, the staunch determination to project an image of constant caution, a tenacity and might that casts her old self in shadow. She is still so much younger than they and Cassandra can see something in her eyes, a muddled tenderness, a surprising resilience, even if it frequently gives way to terror in the midst of the worst atrocities, the hardest decisions.

Cassandra is relieved when Trevelyan allows herself to cast off that burden, even if for a moment.

“Oh,” she says, chewing her bottom lip. “Can I help?”

Cassandra shakes her head. “You must have better things to be doing than helping me letter a note, Herald.”

She shrugs and jumps from the rock they had been seated on. “Not particularly but I won't invade your privacy any further. I hope your friend is—I hope you can speak with him soon.”

Cassandra finds it odd that she knows it is a _he_ she is writing to.

// 

_A note written fresh parchment, creased considerably._

I hope you are getting sleep. You may have had rigorous training with the Templars but exhaustion does not behest a great leader. Your troops rely on you. The Inquisition relies on you. I need you at your best. 

When we met, I had to believe that you could overcome this. I still believe you can. It's time you find that belief in yourself. You give yourself little credit in the areas that need it most. No one questions your skill as a soldier and knowledge as a commander. 

I would never hope for you to prove me wrong in my decision to bring you to Haven.

Take care and I will see you soon, friend.

//

He is so much worse when they get back. 

It takes her twenty minutes to find him, approaching each recruit in increasing hostility, demanding the whereabouts of their commander, until she tracked him down to Adan's house (by the direction of a quivering soldier who could barely meet her eye), storming past a mildly interested Solas without a word and throwing open the door.

She was so caught up in her own well rehearsed tirade of righteousness around his silence that she doesn't notice him, at first.

“Two weeks, Cullen! Messenger birds do not take two weeks!”

He is sitting in the corner of the room, the fur cloak that was so much a part of him shed from his shoulders, most of his armour piled by the roaring fireplace, just down to his breeches and tunic. It's the most bare she has seen him, in any form, his every shudder and every falter unreserved and raw. From across the small house, she can see him _shaking_. His skin grey, his head bobbing slightly as his breath came in wheezes, clasping and unclasping his hands.

She wants to swallow her words, take them and her indignation back, but sometimes it's too late for that. She is too scared, her pride too bruised, too ashamed, to step forward.

“He's at the worst of it now,” Adan informs her from where he stands at his work table. He had been watching her. The man was frankly intimidating. He approaches her at a fast pace and Cassandra only backs up slightly. “He is suffering greatly, Seeker. His health is abysmal, his strength waining. He needs _reprieve_.”

Adan was careful to not specify what the reprieve was. Cassandra felt the weight of filling that in on her own.

“I will leave you to speak privately,” Adan announces, moving around Cassandra to leave. 

The door clicks shut behind Cassandra and she leans back on it, hands crossed behind her back.

He tries to laugh but it sounds foreign on him, hollow, as if he had never laughed before now. She doesn't want to wince, to show weakness for him. It's not what he needs. He doesn't need her being soft for him, letting her concern act as her mediator, her guide. He has enough of that himself.

“I tried to write,” he manages to get out, slow and laboured. “But, you know—was never the best at lettering.” He holds up a hand that trembles horribly before tucking it back in between his knees with a sigh.

She's shaking her head, admonishing herself. “It's fine, Cullen. I'm sorry, I should have—”

He waves his hand at her, a great deal of effort, and his chest heaves. “It's not your fault.”

She crosses the room in long strides to kneel in front of him. To look him in the eye and feel his warm hands, to look at him and have him say _I'm okay I'm here I'm fine_. But his eyes are glassy and distant. His hands heated, covered in sweat. He's not the same; parts of him present, only to be suffocated under a cascade of brutal endurance and consuming _want_ for the things that destroy him wholly.

She takes his hands in hers, squeezes tight, trying to still him so she may not have to admit that it has come to this, to admit she may have not done enough. “If you must take it, I will get it for you.”

He shakes his head, his forehead creased. “No, not now. I've come this far.”

“And you've done so, valiantly,” she assures him. “But, Cullen, you are not well. You are _suffering_.” She reaches up, placing her hand on his cheek. He leans into it, his breath shaky, quiet. “I cannot bear to see you like this.”

His eyes open, briefly, and flicker to hers. _I'm okay I'm here I'm—_

He nods, only once.

She leaves him in Adan's house, covered in a thin wool blanket, laid out on the cot. She tells him to sleep. She shuts the door behind her, knowing he won't. She walks to the Chantry, counting her steps, watching her weight leave foot prints in the snow. She pushes the doors open and all at once feels as if she's offering up benediction and wallowing in sin. She is cleansing ablutions and laughing at the altar. She has been raised on high, dragging blood through the dirt.

What is right. What is good. They seem to bleed.

She is standing in front of Josephine, her hands clasped together, her knuckles sore from the pull of her fingers. The ambassador lays her quill down upon seeing the vulnerability Cassandra could feel her body betray of her.

“I need a favour and I need it to be discreet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone commented and I got all giddy and decided to post the second chapter right away :) Thank you, thesecondseal.
> 
> Come find me at **[tumblr!](http://thatgirl-who.tumblr.com)**


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